1. Technical Field
Example embodiments generally relate to an image forming apparatus and an image forming method, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus for forming a toner image on a recording medium and an image forming method performed by the image forming apparatus.
2. Background Art
Related-art image forming apparatuses, such as copiers, facsimile machines, printers, or multifunction printers having two or more of copying, printing, scanning, facsimile, plotter, and other functions, typically form an image on a recording medium according to image data. Thus, for example, a charger uniformly charges a surface of a photoconductor; an optical writer emits a light beam onto the charged surface of the photoconductor to form an electrostatic latent image on the photoconductor according to the image data; a developing device supplies toner to the electrostatic latent image formed on the photoconductor to render the electrostatic latent image visible as a toner image; the toner image is directly transferred from the photoconductor onto a recording medium or is indirectly transferred from the photoconductor onto a recording medium via an intermediate transfer belt; finally, a fixing device applies heat and pressure to the recording medium bearing the toner image to fix the toner image on the recording medium, thus forming the image on the recording medium.
Such image forming apparatuses are susceptible to change in an image density of the toner image formed on the recording medium over time or as an environment such as a temperature and a humidity changes. To address this circumstance, an optical sensor detects the image density of a gradation toner pattern formed on the image bearer. A controller changes an image forming condition based on the detected image density to attain the constant image density. Such control is called a process control.